1. Field of the Invention
The document relates to wireless audio/video equipment and channel selecting method thereof for formation of a new wireless network by selecting the most appropriate operating channel based on a monitoring result of ambient channel environment around an operable channel scope.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Recently, the trend is that audio/video (hereinafter referred to as A/V) equipment capable of wireless transmission of multimedia contents such as image and music is on the increase. Concomitant with the increasing trend, the wireless environment has grown more complicated to make the A/V equipment encounter a wireless environment of various ever-present obstacles.
Various communication and non-communication equipment, such as, for example, hot spot service providing apparatuses, personal computers equipped with wireless LAN (Local Area Network), coreless phones and microwave ovens, pollute channel environment where the wireless A/V equipment operates. Still worse, the equipment is invariably turned on and off to make it impossible to anticipate its operating duration.
As a result, it necessitates for the wireless A/V equipment to cope with a complicated wireless environment, and to satisfy a Quality of Service (QoS) requirement for transmission of multimedia contents.
In the conventional data communication, requirement for delay time and throughput is not that strict. For example, if a user receives a file using a wireless network, it is possible to receive the file even though transmission speed is slow due to inferior transmission condition of wireless channel.
However, if a QoS requirement is not met, the wireless A/V equipment transmitting A/V data including image and/or sound data cannot even start transmitting the A/V data. In other words, a user may not use relevant A/V equipment in its entirety.
For example, if a moving picture encoded in 8 Mbps is to be streamed, a user cannot view the moving picture at all if the wireless channel cannot meet the QoS requirement of 8 Mbps.
In case of wireless LAN, wireless channel selection of Access Point (AP) is realized among a channel set allowed by each country. The existing wireless A/V equipment adopts one of two methods in the selection of wireless channels, e.g., manual channel selection and automatic channel selection. The manual channel selection is manually selected by a user at an initial implementation of the AP, and the automatic channel selection is such that the AP is automatically selected at an initial start.
The automatic channel selection is generally selected on a basis of simple condition such as activity per channel or the like. An automatic channel selection of IEEE 802.11a standard which is 5 GHz band wireless LAN supports IEEE 802.11h by dynamic channel selection in response to the European standards.
However, the conventional automatic channel selection is focused more on channel protection for radar than protection of transmission quality of wireless A/V equipment, and there is a problem even in the case of supporting the dynamic channel selection in that poor A/V streaming service results without a standard algorithm being directly embodied.